Can a person sell his inheritance? Suppose A is one of three siblings who stand to inherit the family farm when the parents are gone. Mom & dad duly kick the bucket, but siblings B & C feel that the real estate market is bad and they should hold onto the farm for a couple of years (let’s presume that C has been named executor, and is allowed to make this decision).
My question is, can A legally sell his interest in the property? I’m thinking of a contract (a quitclaim deed?) that says “For the sum of X dollars I hereby transfer to [buyer] all rights that I hold in property XYZ.” Would this be legal? Would the buyer truly acquire all the rights that A formerly had?
(Note that this question is hypothetical and does not represent a request for legal advice about any real situation.)
I can’t see why it could not be done but I am not a lawyer. I will also note the sale is of the interest held in a certain property X, not of “an inheritance” so I can’t see why it would make any difference how the interest was acquired by the seller. Selling something I inherited is different from selling an unspecified inheritance. This would be much trickier and could not even be done in certain countries.
Might depend on the type of ownership (joint with survivorship and other assorted terms… I can never keep them straight).
You’d likely have a hard time finding a buyer for such an arrangement as it would be fraught with a lot of limitations on how the buyer could use his/her share of the property.
You could ask the sibs if they’d like to buy you out. At current market values, they might see this as a good deal (farm worth 300,000 now, they each pony up 50K to buy you out, then in a few years the farm is worth 450,000… they each get 225,000 when they sell).
Or, the one who wants to sell can file what’s called a “partition lawsuit”, which deals with property with multiple owners: a judge can order the property be sold for whatever the market will bear, and split the proceeds. I have no clue what the nuances are of such a thing, I just remember some real estate columnists talking about it.
The best solution, IMHO, is for the “hold onto it” sibs to buy out the “get rid of it” sib. The selling sib could even offer them a mortgage on that third of the property. Win-win situation.
Three siblings who inherit a common piece of property would probably have a “tenancy in common” (pro indiviso) which means they can sell their share of interest in the undivided property.